I spent my childhood collecting and pressing four-leaf clovers（三叶草）into books at my mother's house. I started with big cloth-and-leather-bound books. When I ran out of bound volumes，I began to slip my treasures into anything I could find，such as old fiction paperbacks and cookbooks. The same is true in my house today. Shake a book，and a treasure just might fall into your hand.
A few years ago，in Nova Scotia，my husband and I pulled off the road for a picnic. The ground was thick with clovers. Some shoots had four，five，or even six leaves. I lined them up on the picnic table to admire. To me，it was simple. The differences in their shapes made them stand out，breaking the pretty pattern of the common clovers with three perfect leaves.
Two summers back，while waiting for an airport shuttle in Munich，I found a tiny four-leaf clover in a traffic circle and put it in my passport. On the way home，my husband and I were upgraded to business class. All of my friends owed it to the clover. I think it's some likely that we were upgraded because a flight was postponed，which left us trapped in two cities for several hours.
People disagree about whether the luck comes for finding or possessing a clover. Some believe that the luck is lost if the four-leaf clover is shown to somebody else，while others think that the luck doubles if it is given away. I believe that positivity is compounded by sharing. I feel lucky to find the clovers so often，but I don't think they influence my life anymore than it does to share any thing a little special with a friend or a stranger.
